[SERMON] Rubbish or Riches: What Are You Really Chasing? | Philippians 3

In this message from Philippians 3, Pastor Cyle Young of Heart o' the Lakes Church asks a simple but piercing question: Are you knowing about Christ, or do you actually know Him? Using everything from a $4,000 board game to Michigan championship rings, Pastor Cyle unpacks Paul's radical declaration that all our earthly treasure is rubbish compared to knowing Jesus. He challenges us to stop coasting on a spiritual resume, get out of the parking lot, and press on toward the only prize that matters.

Scripture: Philippians 3:7–20

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

We continue a series today called uh well it's on the book of Philippians, it's called Philippians, so it's kind of self-name. Uh but we are in chapter three. We're going through four chapters of Philippians this in the last four weeks. So next week will be the final week of it. And so we're in Philippians three today, and that's why we did the responsive reading with Philippians. And so I've got a question though to get us started. So uh who here likes treasure? Treasure treasure, yeah, treasure. Yeah, like a golden balloon. So I got my got my pirate's booty. So, like, like who who likes treasure? No, it doesn't have to be golden balloons. Maybe you does anybody have a golden? Okay, nobody, okay, just checking. Just make checking. Uh, we all got different things that we treasure. Some of us, it's stuff. Uh, so I asked my kids in preparation for this, my wife, like, what do you think I treasure the most? What's my treasure? And so, yeah, so what's that? Board games? Uh yeah. So here is here is what they said. So so this is Trevi. Yeah. This is me and my baby. So uh yeah, I for the eight to ten years of her lifespan, I treasure her very much. So uh yeah, so I think about her death often. So um she's still alive, but like I worry about it, so it's a treasure of mine, right? So uh, but I have other things I treasure. You guys have treasures. Some of you, who who is uh your one of your greatest treasures? If you're not your greatest treasure, your dog, your your pet, your horse, pet, dog, gerbil. All right, you children and you don't count. Children's spouses don't count. That should be by default, if not. So I got another treasure I brought today. Uh this is what I thought they would say. This is what I thought they would say. This is one of my board games. And this is not all of it. This there's two big tubs that go this high next to it. So I didn't bring those because they weren't on wheels. But this is one of my games. I got this cool little uh container where I have like I keep all my little guys, as these little units, and you build this 3D map, and uh, it's awesome. So so we love it. Uh yeah, I I love it. So this is the game that I've told my kids upon my death they cannot sell, or I will come back and hunt them for the rest of their lives, even though I don't believe in that at all, but I will I will find a way. Um, so this is this is gonna be bequeathed to one of my children along with all my other games. They're not allowed to study my games. This is my most expensive board game by far. Uh, it cost me well over $4,000. So now don't be like, Kyle, you spent all that money. It cost me a car because uh there were these rare pieces. This went out of print, and there was these rare pieces, and they were an hour and a half away, so I drove in a torrential downpour rainstorm to go and get those pieces. On the way back, I was so excited about the game. I don't know how to speed home, probably. And I went off an off-ramp, and my car hydro slid on the on the water into the guardrail, destroyed, totaled my car. So I had to call Patty and say, hey, I just totaled my car. So this is the constant reminder of that moment where I lost a car to a board game. And so this is not Patty's treasure or her favorite game. She has uh lots of issues with this one. So it's why it can never go away, because it cost me a lot of money to get this game. The game didn't actually cost that much, it was the car. So that's a treasure. Um you all laugh, but you have moments, all right? So uh you have your own stories. And then I have other treasures. So another treasure that I have I have in my pockets here. These are my Michigan rings. This is a national championship ring from 1997. It's a treasure for me. And this is the Big Ten Championship ring from 2000. So these are these are treasures, right? We all have different treasures. Some of it's jewelry, some of its houses, some of its cards, some of it's games, some of you, children and spouse should be by default, but uh not for maybe not for everybody. Dogs, pets, all those things. We all have different treasures. The problem is for us the our our focus in life becomes the treasure. I want more stuff, I want more treasure, and so everything I do is about getting that next treasure. And so these are these are cool, but here's the thing about this one. I got this one 15 years after we won the bowl game because they forgot to give us the ring. So 15 years later, after everybody started retiring from the NFL, not me, I didn't go there, um, they all came back, we all started to get white hairs, and they gave us, they had a ceremony. We got they they took Patty and I to Ant and Arbor, we got to stay in Kensington Hotel, they had the whole Chrysler Arena set up, we had a reunion, we had a thing, and they brought the guys in to speak, and they gave us these rings 15 years later because everybody gets a ring. And so, although this is a treasure, uh for 15 years I didn't have it, so it's not that big of a treasure, right? And so, like for me, these these are these are great, but like when I go, my when I I haven't made my kids swear to not sell these. Yeah, they're probably hawk these for 15 bucks when I'm when I'm dead, so so yeah. If you want them, just wait till I die and then offer them. So you'll probably get a ring. But like, there's just different value that we place on different things and different treasures in life. And some of us, we don't necessarily agree with the right treasures are, right? Some of us have different treasures, some of us house, car, boat, vacation, whatever, timeshare, cruise ship, I don't know what you guys all treasure. But the problem with treasures is the wrong treasure will lead you in the wrong direction. If your whole life is about getting more and more treasure of whatever you treasure, it's gonna take you down a path. The problem is that path does not align with the treasure that is Jesus Christ. And so that's the danger of all these things, their treasures. Now, I'm being silly about the board games. I love that board game, but um, and I love you know my treasure, but it's not as important to me as Christ. You know, that's the thing that matters most. And although I may have other treasures in life, for me, you choosing Christ is what matters the most. Like I played football, it was great. We got we got this cool thing. I got this cool ring, my freshman year of college. That's how cool it was. But by my junior year of college, I recognized football's fun, but that that goes away. What would happen is all these all these old guys would come and they'd come with their letter jackets and they'd be they'd be all wrinkly and old from like, you know, I don't want to say an age. 27. So uh they were older than 27. I don't want to put an age for anybody as I get closer to the ages, but they would come back and they were, they were they were old. And they were just still reliving the highlights of their older days. And I just thought to myself, once you're done, you're done. When when football's over, there is no more football. I don't know if you know this. You don't play football. Once you're done playing football in high school, junior high, college, you don't play football again. No one's like, hey, let's get our pads on and go out in the yard and just play a football game. Like that's never once happened to me in my life. So it's over and it ends, and I recognize by the end, what continues to move on is my relationship with Christ. So I actually became a youth pastor my junior year of college. I started serving in a church, I did that for two years. And by the time I was done at college, uh, I could have stayed another year. I was done. I wanted to get married, move on my life, I wanted to do ministry. That's what God called me into because that's the real treasure. And although I have some cool bling, that's not the treasure because I know that takes you in a different direction. And so Paul is writing to the church in Philippi, which is what we call the book of Philippians, the letter he wrote to church. And we're gonna pick this up in Philippians 3, 7. And what Paul says is this you read the yellow part out loud, but whatever gain I had, I counted as lost for the sake of Christ. Paul was famous in his day. He was a Jewish leader who was well respected, and his whole job was like to hunt down Christians and to arrest them and get them in trouble because they were anti the Jewish faith. Like these this was this sect that was breaking off, it was messing things up. And so Paul actually was a very well-respected, high-up Jew who was getting these other Christians in trouble, and that people respected him. And so he had all this stuff, and what he's recognizing here is when he came to Christ, he's like, all this stuff I had, it's all for loss because of Christ. If I really want Christ, all of my stuff, all of my treasure treasure, it doesn't matter. Because the things we once valued most often becomes the things we must surrender. That thing that you treasure the most is the thing you're probably gonna need to give up to really truly have Christ, to understand Christ, to know Christ, and to love Christ. You've got to be willing to give it up. Now that's tough because we we treasure things. We treasure our time, we treasure our talent, we treasure our actual treasure, our money. But often when we get called to follow the Lord, we have to give up that treasure. We must surrender it because the thing that we must choose is always Christ. Philippians continues on, Paul's writing. He says, Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. Everything, all that Paul had rubbish. This is rubbish. Now, for those of you higher state fans and Michigan state fans, they that you like hearing that today, that this is rubbish. But it's rubbish, it's a thing, it's a created thing. These board games, rubbish. Rubbish. My dog, not rubbish. She has a short lifespan, so she's okay. So I um yeah. But those things are they're they're rubbish. Paul had the proper perspective. Once he had a connect, once he had a moment with Christ where God blinded him and called him to serve him, all that previous life, rubbish, all that previous treasure, rubbish. Now it's all about Christ. Knowing Christ and making him known. Because knowing Christ is better than merely knowing about Christ. There are so many Christians who know Christ, but they don't. I mean, they know about Christ. They just don't know Christ. I mean, people use the word Christ as a swear word now. The whole world knows Christ. You can watch any show. I I watched uh Masters Universe this weekend. They they use words that are, you know, choice words in it. They I watch TV shows, they use Jesus Christ's name often in it, right? Not in the right way, right? They're not, this is not an angel network. Like you hear the word Christ everywhere. He's he's part of our cultural vernacular. People use it as swear words. Like people know about Jesus Christ. We see movies, we see media, we see t-shirts, we see all kinds of stuff. The problem is they don't actually know the person of Jesus Christ, have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And the problem with a lot of Christians is we know about Christ. We go to church. I know about Jesus. But do you actually know Christ? Because to know somebody means you spend time with them, you have a conversation with them, you have a relationship with them. There's a lot of people that I know. I know Tom Brady. I know about Tom Brady, I know how tall he is, I know what he how he acts when you cheap shot him at practice and knock him on the ground when you're not supposed to. I know. I know about Tom Brady. But we don't hang out. I didn't go get a I don't go fly in his private jet around the country. I know he doesn't call me up to ask me about the Super Bowl. I don't know Tom Brady. I know about Tom Brady. I know more about Tom Brady than a lot of people, but I don't know Tom Brady. We're not in relationship. I had an elder at one of my last church who knew actually Tom Brady more than me because they hung out on a plane. He was a private pilot, and so he flew Tom Brady and he said we shared pretzels. And I said, Do you know Kyle Young? He's like, Yeah, I know Kyle Young. And uh I he so he was telling me about he knows me. I cheap shot him and he did not like it. So um, so he was there was nobody back then, so uh it happened. So but like it changes. And the problem is a lot of us know about Christ, but we don't actually know Christ because to know him, you have to be in relationship with him, and you gotta be growing deeper in relationship, and you have to be constantly in relationship. You know a lot of people in this community because you went to school with him, high school with him, you worked with him at one point, but you don't know him anymore. Uh last night I was at Somerset Beach Campground, I was talking to Greg. Greg works there, and Greg is like, he told me, he said, Hey, I went, I went garage selling today. I was like, that's awesome. Uh and he's like, Yeah, I went to I went like to 20 houses in Lakeland. And he goes, you know what? Everybody at Lakeland knows you. And I'm like, that's cool, I'm Lakeland famous. That's actually what I told him. I was like, yeah, I'm Lakeland famous. That's cool. He goes, in like 12 of those houses, people went to your church. I was like, well, how did you pick the right houses, right? So like around there, he said, three of them, he had three of them had hollow signs. He goes, three of them even had hollow signs. That's what he said. Um but like I said, yeah, Lakeland famous. But like I know people, but how many of those people do I actually know? Like some of those people just knew of me in the community. They knew about me, he was saying. They didn't know me. Like they didn't have a relationship with me. The people at Heart of the Lakes had a relationship with me, they know Kyle. The other people just knew about Kyle. One, I don't know why he that was his first thing. He was asking people, hey, do you know Kyle? Right? That's a weird conversation. You guys try that in your neighborhood, let me know how it goes. So, but if report back to me, am I am I famous in your neck of the woods? Um, but knowing Christ, it's better than merely knowing about Christ. You can know a lot about Jesus and not actually know Jesus. That's the that's the truth. And Paul, Paul's writing to tell people the difference, and what he's saying to these people in establishing who he is, he's he's just he's really saying he traded his resume for a relationship. He was a famous person who was well up in his kind of Jewish circles, he was respected, and he gave it all away for a relationship with Jesus. All his local fame, he said, I'm not gonna be that guy anymore because now I know Christ. And now that I know Christ, I'm gonna give all that life up and I'm gonna go after what he wants for me. That's the relationship I want. I want to know my Savior. That's what we have to do. It's not enough to just know about Jesus. You gotta give away your resume to serve him. Your life from the past doesn't matter. It's what you're doing with him, for him, and through him. Philippians continues on. It says, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. Paul's basically saying, you can live a right life, you can do the right things. None of that matters if it doesn't come through faith in Christ. Because the only righteousness that matters is his, is Jesus's. And so for us to have a relationship with Jesus means that everything that we are comes through faith in him. The relationship with them. Not the treasures we accumulate, not the stuff that we do, not the past that we've had, the future that we're moving into. See, the gospel, it's not about what you've done for God. It's not like, oh, I'm just I've been such I've been doing this 28 years of ministry. Look at all my track record I've done for you, Lord. I've done so much good, I've built so much good news up for you. It's not about that, it's about what God has done for you. That's what it is, that's the good news. That there's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can say, my track record, my resume, it doesn't matter. Jesus Christ already paid the price, and he has done it all for me. His righteousness is all that matters, and it doesn't matter what I've done. It doesn't matter what I'm going to do. What matters is what he has done. That's what matters. I'm just called to be obedient, to serve him, to love him. And so Paul is trying to tell people your life, your resume, it doesn't matter. What matters is Jesus. Always will be Jesus. Philippians 3 continues on. He says, That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Paul says, like this has been this has not been an easy journey. Just because you follow Jesus, just because you have a relationship with Jesus, doesn't mean life's gonna get easy. It's actually gonna be hard. Paul's like, I'm gonna share in his sufferings. I think people just think if I accept Jesus, my life's gonna be easy. It's not. Oftentimes when people accept Jesus, life gets rough. And then they get defeated because, like, I thought accepting Christ would make my life easier, better. No. We share in his sufferings. That's the hard part. You you got an enemy that wants you to be defeated. And the moment you you publicly declare that I'm following the Lord, the enemy's coming. I mean, we're doing baptism today. We're gonna have a bunch of them. That's a bunch of people gonna be spiritually attacked by the enemy because the last thing that the enemy wants is for them to know Christ and to make him known. Get ready if you're getting baptized. I'm not trying to scare you, but like we want to share in his sufferings because that's how we know it's real. It's real. The enemy doesn't want you to move forward. Paul's saying that is the power of his resurrection, that through God's power we can share along in our relationship with him because we're in relationship with him. And the problem is everybody wants resurrection power. Everybody does. We all know that the I think I said this last week. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus ascended to the right hand of God. And when we get to glory, we sit next to him at the right hand. That's the place of power. We all want that power. We all want the power of God, the Holy Spirit. We all want to be able to do all these awesome things and be able to have all this stuff. We want we want power. So much so that, like in our world, there's a there's a movie out right now about power. Masters of the universe. Anybody seen it? You should see it, because I I knew it needed to make another one. Uh, it's very good. But Master of the Universe, He-Man, right? He-Man's thing is he raises his sword, the sword of power, and he says, What? I have the power.

unknown 18:02

By the power of grace call.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

By the power of grace, but say that first, yeah. By the power of grace call, I have the power. So thank you for clarifying. All right. 80s nerd. Uh so uh yeah. But they made a movie about it because there was a children's show about it, and the children's show came after the children's toys. And there's a literally a show about why they made He-Man the toys, and the reason they made the toys because they wanted to compete with Star Wars toys, and so this other company said, We need to create a toy. So, what they did is they came up with this concept. What do all boys want? Power. They made a toy about power because that's what they believe boys want. And they threw a bunch of toys together, they made it, and they made a guy that raises a sword called the sword of power and says, I have the power, and it became a massive hit because all boys want power. Everybody wants power. So much so that two years later, they recognize that not only do boys want power, guess who else wants power? Girls. And so they create a character called She-Ra. And She-Rah is, uh I won't tell you the spoiler, but um, but She-Ra, they they tweaked it. Because girls just don't want power, they want protection, they believed. And so they so She-Rah raises the short of sword of protection. So he she has the sword of protection, he has the sword of power, it's this whole thing, it sold millions and millions of dollars worth of toys. Everybody wants power. The problem is few people want resurrection preparation. We all want to get to the end when we look like he-Man and She-Ra and we've got power. We just don't want to put the work in. That was a great part of a He-Man. He was kind of a loser, right? And then he raised his sword, now he becomes He-Man, this ultimate superhero, right? We want to skip the work. These rings, everybody would love to have one of these rings, right? A beautiful ring, championship ring, it's great. There's a lot of preparation that goes into getting these. You do. The problem is we all want our, we all want the treasure, we just don't want to put in the work. This is why a lot of us struggle with diets. Because diets take a lot of prep, right? They take a lot of work, a lot of effort. You gotta put effort in. For us in our relationship with the Lord, if you really want power, if you really want the resurrection power of Jesus Christ to change your life, you gotta put in the work. You gotta put in the preparation, you gotta read your Bible, you gotta study, you gotta do life group, you gotta do Bible, you gotta come to church, you gotta come to events, you gotta you gotta engage with God, you gotta have a regular prayer life. And the problem is statistics say that the average Christian prays less than three times a month. Or read, sorry, reads the Bible less than three times a month. Doesn't even pray daily. That's not preparation. If I believe that I have a relationship with Jesus, I'm not preparing to have a good relationship, to have all that power and glory by maybe reading my Bible three times a month, maybe praying every day. That's not sold-out commitment. That means I just I want I want the end without the effort. That's the danger when we look at Christians. We all know about Christ. We don't all really know Christ. Maybe we knew him at one point, we've kind of put up, we've pulled off in the parking lot, and we're just taking a break. My mom told me once, I I know I mention this a lot, my mom probably hates this, but uh, my mom told me once, and I felt like she like slapped me in the face, and she said, We, you know, we have we we've kind of retired from from ministry. So we've served a long time, but like we're not at a place, we just need a break. We're retiring. And I'm like, you don't retire from ministry, like you die doing ministry. Like that's the whole purpose. You you move you keep serving. Like you were all ministers of the gospel. It's not just me. I'm gonna die in a pulpit one day. I believe so. I'm just gonna done. Um, no, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Not today, sorry. I should have nosedived right there. But the truth is, you do ministry until your last breath. You do. Like that, there is no retirement. You're preparing and you're preparing and you're preparing for glory all the way up until the moment you meet your end, and then you're there. The problem is we want to just pull off and say, I just want to park this car for a while. I'm just taking a break. There's a beautiful scenic overlook over here. I'm going to take a little break. I don't want to keep driving. See, Paul is trying to tell people that is not the way. The way is you move forward. Philippians continues on and says, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. That not that I have already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ has made me his own. He's saying, hey, Jesus has made me his. And I'm going to press on. I'm going to press on in the journey to make him mine, to choose him, to have a relationship with him. Not for anything that I've done, but for what he's done. The problem for all of us, we're not pressing on. Some of us we've pulled off and we're like, I've been doing this for 30 years. I'm done. Like I'm just gonna coast into glory. Like I did enough. The problem is, yeah, I mean what you're saying is I knew Jesus, we were we were friends for a while, but now we're just acquaintances. I actually had this conversation with my daughter. She was out in Nationals last week and she was hanging out with one of the other competitor that she was competing with. I said, Are you guys friends? She goes, Yeah, I think maybe so. I said, Well, are you friends or are you acquaintances? Friend means when you come back, you're going to hang out together and do life together. Acquaintance means we competed at nationals together, and when we see each other, we'll be friendly. She goes, I think acquaintance. Okay, so because it's different. Some of you were friends with Jesus, and now you're just an acquaintance. And that's hard to hear. I've been there, I think pastors are just as guilty of it. You kind of like pull off along the highway and you're like, oh, just kind of hang out here for a while. I've been driving long enough, I need a break. Paul says, press on, press on, press on. Because mature Christians are still growing Christians. That's the truth. If you really are mature in your faith, you keep growing and you keep growing. I'll just tell you this. Every week I put a sermon together, every week. I love doing it. I'll learn something new every time. And I've been doing this for a long time. You just never stop learning. There's always more. The Holy Spirit, that resurrection power is working in you, in your brain, as you engage with God's word, and it's always telling you something new and different. If you've pulled off in a parking lot, you're not learning new stuff. You're taking a break, you're taking a nap. Kind of close your mind off, your heart off the Lord. If you press on, you're still growing. See, Philippians 3 continues on and says, brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. We gotta stop looking back. Now, um, yesterday I picked up Patty and Kylie from there, they were coming back from uh Atlanta, picked them for the airport. So I took the dogs because it was, you know, I like to hang out with my dog. I took Patty's dog because I figured that would make her happy. So her dog's little, my dog is not. And so when we were driving, I kind of lost track of the little one, um, Scooter, who his name is. And so I was like, I probably should, I think he's still in here. Um so I was driving and I took the rearview mirror and I adjusted it just to make sure I could find the dog to make sure he's still in there. And so it's really hard to do that. Drive forward and look for a dog in a rearview mirror. Anyone know what's knows what happens? You kind of drift, right? You drift to the other lane. So I found the dog real quick, put it back in and I immediately adjust it. And the problem is you cannot drive forward while staring in the rearview mirror. You can't. It's impossible. Don't try it. I'm sorry if there's any police officers in here. Um I was just wanting to make sure I didn't lose a dog. So um, but like ultimately, you cannot do that. But some of you, that's how you live your life. You live your life looking through the, oh, let me just look at the rearview mirror of all the things I used to do, all the things I did for Jesus. This is great. And you're just you're just drifting. You're drifting, you're drifting because you're just looking at the past. But Paul is saying, none of that past matters. He gave all that up, that's all rubbish. He gave all that up for Jesus, and you just press on, you just drive. So much so that the next verse he says this I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. This is the push on, push on, press on for the treasure, the treasure of Jesus. Are you living life where you're you're so locked in that you're just pressing on, pressing on, pressing on? You're driving no matter what's happening, no matter how difficult, no matter how much you suffer, you are just continue to push on for Jesus, or are you just grabbing that rear view mirror and looking at the better days behind? Oh, that was great. I did some cool things back then, right? Or I really served the Lord back then. I was really growing, you know, in my 20s for Jesus, but now I'm kind of I pulled off and parked. See, the Christian life, it's not a parking place, it's a race. It is. It's a race. And if you're not racing, you're parked. And the problem is in the modern day church, there's a lot of parked people. There's a lot of parked people. You know, I just uh about a week and a half or so ago, I got a Costco membership. Anyone got one? Yeah, I got a Costco membership, it's a thing. Um I got it because we wanted to buy slushy, ninja slushy machines for the youth group. And so we got them at Costco, they're cheaper. And so I went over, that place is like Fort Knox. Sam's Club, they'll let anybody in. You can go in. I have gone into Sam's Clubs many times with no membership and bought stuff. I just kind of walk in like I know somebody and they let me in. Costco, they will not let you in. So you have to have a membership. So yesterday I went, there were 5,000 people, it seemed like at the one in Arbor yesterday on the way home. So I went and I got my little app and I got it up and I have my QR code, and I go to go in, I go to scan in, and somehow my thumb hit it and it missed. So then I kept walking because I thought it did. And so this lady's like, no, sir. And she's size of rose over here, like little tiny, five pounds. Um, and I'm like, I mean, she's gonna tack me. And that's like, oh sorry. There you go. So I scanned in, and like, I was like, that lady was gonna tackle me if I tried to get in that store. Like she was a she was ready. And I'm like, I better do this. But like you couldn't get in without the membership. Some of you, your your relationship with Jesus is a cost co-membership. You got Christ co-membership, right? You just do. Like, you think I got the QR code, so when we get to Pearly Gates, it's gonna be like, hey, scan me in. I know Jesus. The problem is you know about Jesus. You don't know Jesus. Because if you're in a relationship with Jesus, you don't need to be scanned in. You just come on in, right? And so for some of us, we have to we have to think, we're in a parking place in our walk with the Lord. We're tired. We did so much for the Lord. I served. Some of you even said it, well, I served in, I did, I taught Sunday school for 30 years, and so I'm I'm just kind of tired. I need to let somebody else do it. There's no Bible verse that says let someone else do it. I don't know if you know, you know, I never read that. Maybe you should tell me 2 Philippians, right? So, all right. So, like, that's not there. So uh there's no Bible verse about letting someone else take over. The Bible verse says race on, press on, push on toward the prize. Find your fit, serve, find your way to grow so you know Jesus. And I want to skip a few verses. I want to go down to 320 just for sake of time. It says this but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The end of the race, it's race weekend. I didn't plan for this to be race weekend, it just happened. Um but the end of the race is a black and white checkered flag, right? They wave it. You get there, they wave the flag, you're at the end. And then what do you do? They have you pull off in a parking lot and they celebrate you.

unknown 30:10

Right?

SPEAKER_00 30:11

They go to the pit row, they celebrate, you park your car. For us, the end of the race, there's a parking lot and it's called heaven. And when you get there, they wave the flag. You're at me, I don't think they actually wave the flag, but they get into heaven. That's where you park the car and you celebrate when you're with Jesus. The rest of the time is press on, race on, push on for Jesus. And see, the problem is too many of us are we're living for a world that is not our home. This world is not your home. It's temporary. This is the race. And the more we understand that this is the race, then we can prepare for the home, which is the parking lot. We should be going, going, going for that thing. That's why these things don't matter. This is rubbish. That stuff is rubbish. My dog is rubbish, but I do love her. So all that stuff matters nothing because that's not gonna be with me in my home. My home is gonna be with Jesus. See, what captures your heart determines the direction of your life. The problem is, as Americans, there's a lot of other things that capture our heart. And that's the direction we're going. We're in that rearview mirror and we're drifting off the path. So, what does this mean for you? Here's some things to think through. You gotta stop measuring your worth by your accomplishments. I've done a lot of cool stuff, none of it matters. I have a lot of cool board games. I got some of the best, to be honest with you. Pastor Matt called me. He went to board game, uh, he went to board game sale yesterday. 50 or 3,800 board games. 3,800 board games for sale. And he called me. He's like, Do you have this one? Yep. You have this one? Yep. You have this one? Yep. It's sad. I get that. Um, because he's trying to find some new ones I don't have. So we just gave up. We bought a $7 game, uh, and that was it. But the truth is, we all got stuff, we all got treasure, we all got accomplishments. None of it matters. It's rubbish. It's rubbish. What matters is Jesus. We gotta start trusting in our spiritual resume. It does not matter what you have done for the Lord, none of that matters. It matters what you're doing and you're going to do for the Lord, with the Lord. Because you're doing it through Him. You can't build up a spiritual resume to let you get pulling the parking lot and get your Christ co-membership. You gotta let go of your past failures and past victories. Here's a big one. It your past doesn't matter. I don't care what your sin is, neither does God. He forgives it to you, and it's gone. I was golfing this week with a guy, and uh uh we spent two hours, we lost like 15 balls at Gauchy Golf. Uh that place just eats balls. It does. Um so ultimately we went golfing and we sat there for two hours having a conversation. He told me about his life, and I told him about my life, and like our lives could not be more different. I grew up in a home where my parents were married. They loved, they loved each other, they loved the Lord. I was raised in a church. My parents, even when times were financially tough, they took care of us. Life was good. His life, awful all the way through, horrible relationship with parents, drugs, alcohol, all kinds of problems. We couldn't have more different lives. And we just sat there talking. And at the end of it, I thanked him. I said, Listen, like this conversation is why I do what I do. Because you're the target of why we we exist as a church. Because a lot of people come to church and they already know the Lord, they know about him. But I get a chance to really help this guy know Jesus, live for Jesus. And although there's not a lot of similarities to our life and our past, there's gonna be a similarity to our future. And that's what's powerful. We gotta let go of the past, the brokenness, and even our victories. And we gotta start struck, we gotta start struggling as we push on for Christ. And then we've got to pursue Christ more than our comfort. Some of us we just live to try to be comfortable, as comfortable as we can. But are you really pursuing Christ over all the other stuff? I think the answer for most American Christians is no. I'd rather have comfort, and I'll put Christ in there in the mix. And then we've got to keep moving forward in faith. You gotta push on, press on, race on. See, Christ isn't not merely the way into the Christian life, he is the prize at the end of it. That's the truth. The parking lot's heaven, and that's the only time you're supposed to stop. And if you're at a place where you know you've stopped, push on, press on, race on. Because that's the goal. And if you need help with that, that's why we're here as a church. We do so many events, so many activities, because we're trying to create opportunities for people to get involved in the serve. That's why we do it. It's not because I like being exhausted all the time, right? It's because we want you to get out of your seats and get invested in the kingdom and serve. I, there's you want a new start, something? Here's what I want. I want a Christian business person's breakfast. I want somebody to run it. Pray about it. Let me know. Like, there's all kinds of things that you can do. Figure out your passion and do it for the Lord. I go Friday night, I go play cards with guys, and I talk about Jesus. This week, so we were talking, I was playing a game, competing against a guy. I was like, hey, do you go to church where? He's like, no. I was like, he goes, well, I used to during the school year, but now it's summer, so you know, no, no. I was like, oh, it sounds like every other Christian. So um, yeah. And I so I said, hey, if you want to come, you know, most of us all go to Heart of the Lakes that are here. You're welcome to come. You know, come on over. But like, not a high pressure self, just like we've been hanging out for the last few weeks. Figure it was time to invite him. I don't know if he'll come or not. But like, you can turn anything you do into something about Jesus if you're intentional. Do that in your life. Find a way to turn your passions into Jesus. Because he's the prize, he's the treasure. See, the greatest loss in life, I think, is this gaining everything except Christ. Because when you die, nothing goes with you. These will not go with me, these will not even be in my casket. One of you will pay $15 and own it. So the great 10 right now. I love it. Talk to me after. The Bible makes it clear. There's a lot of people who call me Lord and not get in. Not get in because they don't actually know me. They know about me. I don't want to be guilty of that. I hope you don't want to be guilty of that. If you know that you're struggling, if you're if you're if I'm talking, you're like, He's talking to me. I don't know that I'm talking to you, that's the Holy Spirit telling you that. Do something about it. Do something about it, make a change, make a change in your life, make a change in what matters. Pull your car out of the parking lot, turn the rearview mirror away and drive and push on for the Lord and watch what He can do. If you need help with that, that's what we're here for as a church. Get plugged in. Um, if you know your if you come here and you're like, I'm just kind of checking out this Christian thing, I'm not really all in yet, and you want to get all in, here's the way. Just tell Jesus, I want to actually know you. I just don't want to know about you. And let these people help me. That's the way. I mean, we're gonna go baptize a bunch of people that are gonna publicly proclaim that they love the Lord. But it starts with just making a decision in your heart that I want more than this life. I want Jesus. And we'll help you. How you can communicate to that, and we'll follow up with you on the back of your connection card. There's a little space that says, Committed my life to Christ. Just check it. Make sure your name and phone number on the side, and Pastor Matt will reach out to you and just say, How can we help you as a church? We're not gonna hard sell you, we're just gonna say, how can we come alongside of you? Because knowing Jesus can transform everything about your future and everything about your life. Uh, we were just talking about backstage before service of how like transformed some people's lives have become at this church through Jesus Christ, and we're excited about that. There's also, if you know that this is a struggle for you, if you're in a parking lot right now and you know that you need to get out of the parking lot and back on the road, write the word Christ down. If you know that you need to go from knowing about Christ to really knowing Christ again, some of you, you're there. I've been there. Pastors get there too. They get they get they get in a rut and they pull off in the parking lot. Just write Christ. Put your name, we'll pray for you this week. Staff meeting, I'll pray for you all throughout the week. That just God speaks to you in a way that that He shows you the way forward on the race so that you can press on and keep pushing forward. So let's pray together. Oh, let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just pray we can be a church that our focus is Christ. Not just knowing about you, Lord, but truly knowing you, truly knowing your son, knowing what it means to have the God of all creation love us and forgive us and want to be in relationship with us. Lord, we pray that we can be more open to racing and running and pushing on, that we stop parking, that we start looking back in the rearview mirror at all the things we did for you, or all the things we once learned, and we say, Lord, we want to keep learning. We want to keep doing, we want to keep serving, we want to keep loving people. Lord, I just pray that anyone here right now knows that they need to get back on track. Lord, you just confirm that in their heart, but you empower them. You also protect them from the attacks that will surely come. Lord, there's anyone here who's just making the decision saying, Lord, I want to I want to know Jesus. I'm trying to figure this thing out. I just pray in their heart right now that you just say the words like, Lord, I I choose you. I choose you as my king, as my Lord, and I'll figure out what that means. Lord, just pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.